Good Shepherd finds homes for six long-term dogs

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

By Samantha Jones Citizen.Editor.Eureka@gmail.com

Good Shepherd Humane Society is saying goodbye to some of its longtime residents.

Shelter manager Sandra Mittler reported Monday that the shelter recently found homes for the dogs in Minnesota. She said these dogs — Hawkeye, Bugaboo, Sydney, Timmy, Adele and Lola — have been at the shelter for at least six months. Four of them, she said, have been there for more than a year.

“What we’re here for is to get them homes. Even though we miss them, we’re happy for them,” she said. “We don’t want them bounced around facilities. They’re going to great facilities. They’re going to great homes.”

Mittler explained that the shelter has been working with other shelters throughout the country on out-of-state adoptions, saying this is the first of what she hopes to be many collaborations between Good Shepherd and other shelters.

“We’re excited about this. They’re going straight into homes,” she said. “There are more people than animals up north. There’s a waiting list for people to see the dogs. We don’t expect them to stay in a shelter for very long.”

Mittler said out-of-state adoptions will help the shelter place dogs who can’t find homes in Carroll County. She described “Black Dog Syndrome,” saying black cats and dogs have a harder time getting adopted than others. That’s not true in the North, she said.

“Up there, they actually like black dogs. My theory is there’s so much snow they want to be able to see them,” she laughed. “There’s not a stigma around blacks cats and dogs there.”

There’s a little more to out-of-state adoptions than on-site adoptions, she said, but the extra work is worth it in the end.

“You do the health certificates and arrange their transports. It’s just a little more paperwork,” she said. “We vetted the facilities they’re going to. They’re definitely going to no-kill facilities.”

Mittler said the shelter has been working on a plan for out-of-state adoptions for a while and is happy to see it come to fruition. It’s one of the best ways, she said, to find homes for the shelter’s long-term animals.

“We were hoping we’d be able to move our animals faster so they don’t get to that year mark, but it’s nice to know if there are some that are harder to place, we have facilities that will take them,” she said. “This is just the beginning of making friends and contacts up North and using local transport around here to help us get them new homes.”

She added, “We’re never done improving. We’re always looking at ways we can expand. We’re just happy to get the long-termers out of here.”

Moving long-term animals out of the kennels, she said, opens up room for more animals. Mittler said some of the larger long-term animals took up quite a bit of space, saying it’s possible two small dogs can fit in one of the kennels that has been vacated. The out-of-state adoptions aren’t the only way the shelter has found new homes for its animals, Mittler said. She said the shelter has had a successful year so far, adopting out more animals than she expected.

“We have definitely picked up. It’s just a good vibe going on,” she said. “We’ve picked up with our game plan on how we’re going to handle this new year. There’s a good spirit in the air. We have a really positive outlook for 2017.”